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Can we be confident things are going to remain like that in the future with newer hardware?

CameronNemo 6y ago
How is this question not moving the goal posts? The top comment claims that Apple Silicon is more locked down than previous Mac iterations. It is not. Does that say anything about future hardware? No. But we are in the same boat with the raspberry pi. If broadcom decides to fuck over hackers who want to use alternative is software for newer hardware iterations, they can. Anything can happen in the future. When purchasing hardware, look at what you can do with the device that is in front of you.
rgovostes 6y ago
Of course you cannot have absolute guarantees about the future but it doesn't mean there's an excuse for so much misinformation about the products on the market today. Apple's head of software engineering has repeatedly publicly dismissed the idea that macOS will become as locked down as iOS. In each of the past several years of releases they've expended a great deal of engineering effort to improve macOS security for the average user while giving advanced users control (for instance, they simultaneously developed secure boot on new Macs, and made it possible to boot alternate operating systems). They continue to release source to several OS components such as the kernel, the cryptographic frameworks, etc. They've never expended any real effort in developing DRM to prevent Hackintosh users from running the OS. Criticism of system internals being poorly documented, and complaints against security features obstructing tinkering are valid, but nothing they've done is signaling that they intend to abruptly change course and create a truly locked-down Mac.
sodality2 6y ago
Can you be confident that any future hardware, or linux even, will remain open to tinker with? If you're worried about tech being closed up, that's fine and well. I wholeheartedly agree with you. But future hardware being limited isn't the same as forcing an update on existing owners, locking services to new devices, etc.
- ttt0 6y ago
  On Linux, it's easy. Because we have the source code and it's licensed under GPL.
  - unix_fan 6y ago
    Tell that to people who were caught by surprise when redhat decided CentOS was no longer viable. Sure you could find alternatives, but it was still a deeply undesirable disruption.
  - chongli 6y ago
    We’re talking about hardware here. There’s no guarantee that all future hardware will be able to boot an unsigned Linux kernel that the user compiled themselves.

How is this question not moving the goal posts? The top comment claims that Apple Silicon is more locked down than previous Mac iterations. It is not. Does that say anything about future hardware? No. But we are in the same boat with the raspberry pi. If broadcom decides to fuck over hackers who want to use alternative is software for newer hardware iterations, they can. Anything can happen in the future. When purchasing hardware, look at what you can do with the device that is in front of you.

rgovostes 6y ago

Of course you cannot have absolute guarantees about the future but it doesn't mean there's an excuse for so much misinformation about the products on the market today. Apple's head of software engineering has repeatedly publicly dismissed the idea that macOS will become as locked down as iOS. In each of the past several years of releases they've expended a great deal of engineering effort to improve macOS security for the average user while giving advanced users control (for instance, they simultaneously developed secure boot on new Macs, and made it possible to boot alternate operating systems). They continue to release source to several OS components such as the kernel, the cryptographic frameworks, etc. They've never expended any real effort in developing DRM to prevent Hackintosh users from running the OS. Criticism of system internals being poorly documented, and complaints against security features obstructing tinkering are valid, but nothing they've done is signaling that they intend to abruptly change course and create a truly locked-down Mac.

sodality2 6y ago

Can you be confident that any future hardware, or linux even, will remain open to tinker with? If you're worried about tech being closed up, that's fine and well. I wholeheartedly agree with you. But future hardware being limited isn't the same as forcing an update on existing owners, locking services to new devices, etc.

ttt0 6y ago
On Linux, it's easy. Because we have the source code and it's licensed under GPL.
- unix_fan 6y ago
  Tell that to people who were caught by surprise when redhat decided CentOS was no longer viable. Sure you could find alternatives, but it was still a deeply undesirable disruption.
- chongli 6y ago
  We’re talking about hardware here. There’s no guarantee that all future hardware will be able to boot an unsigned Linux kernel that the user compiled themselves.